In the past months, Wisconsin has faced heightened scrutiny from the press for its drinking culture, spurring the “Wasted in Wisconsin” series from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and even garnering national attention from The New York Times.

It seems this criticism has finally registered with lawmakers. State legislators have already begun crafting measures to reduce drunken driving, including creating sobriety checkpoints on Wisconsin roadways and adding ignition locks to the vehicles of those arrested for operating while intoxicated. Other lawmakers, including Gov. Jim Doyle, have also added their support for making OWI a felony after the third conviction rather than the fifth.

It’s no secret that Wisconsin has its fair share of problems with drunken driving. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there were approximately 24,000 repeat offenders arrested in 2007. For far too long Wisconsin has been overly lax regarding its penalties for drunken driving, and we encourage legislators’ plans to increase penalties for drunken driving offenses.

Given the potentially deadly nature of the offense, harsher penalties are needed for deterrence. For this reason, we recommend the state make the third OWI offense a felony. Although budget analysis has put the cost of this measure at around $100 million dollars, the potential deterrent effect combined with the need to save lives more than justifies this long-overdue reform.

However, we feel the real power in changing drunken driving offenses lies in crafting harsher penalties for first-time drunken driving offenses. Wisconsin is the only state that does not criminalize the first OWI offense. By classifying a first-time drunken driving violation a misdemeanor — complete with a minimum of a week of jail time — we hope both first offense and chronic OWI violations will be drastically reduced, also hopefully reducing the costs of making a third-time OWI offense a felony. And considering the relatively small $8 million price tag, this change is one in which the benefits would severely outweigh the costs.

However, some state legislators are still concerned by the price tag. Rep. Peggy Krusick, D-Milwaukee, and Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, are pushing for a bill that would only criminalize the first offense if the driver committed a subsequent OWI in the following 18 months to three years. This legislation can only mitigate the deterrent effect of first offense criminalization for a negligible difference in cost. Considering the high price put upon a human life, cost-cutting measures in this scenario strike us as irresponsible.

But simply fining and jailing drunken drivers isn’t enough — alcohol counseling is a necessary component in penalizing offenders, and implementing such programs after the first offense will serve to prevent repeat offense.

As members of the state Legislature begin tackling issues in these early stages of the 2009-11 session, we urge them to continue drafting stiffer penalties for drunken driving offenses as well as supporting rehabilitative measures for chronic offenders — not just to relieve the state of Wisconsin of its heavy drinking stigma but to protect the lives of those operating on the state’s roadways.